'If the night had fallen, the situation would have turned into panic,' rescued tourist tells the Miami Herald

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Two divers left behind by a charter boat off the coast of Key Biscayne, Fla., had a near-death experience, fearing the worst before being saved by a passing yacht, according to the Miami Herald.

"We were in shock," Paul Kline told the Herald of Sunday's incident, in which he and another diver resurfaced only to find the boat gone and themselves three miles from shore. "We could easily have died."

Kline, a 44-year-old certified deep-sea diver from Austin, Texas, said he and Fernando Garcia Puerta, a tourist from Spain, clung to a small buoy for more than two hours until passengers on a boat spotted them. They were found just before dark.